Monday, February 21, 2011

This Sunday was the 1250 point Warhammer Fantasy tournament at Ancient Wonders. The tournament format was a 1250 point list and three unique scenarios. There were nine players competing and we had a pretty interesting mix of armies.
Armies present:
The Great Hunt (Wood Elves at 1250)
The Green Tide (Orks at 1250)
Delicious Pustules? (May have name wrong but as you can guess it was a Nurgle themed Warriors of Chaos)
We Wear Pink Dresses (Tzeentch themed Warriors of Chaos army - hi Jeremy =D )
Army of the Elderly Statesmen (High Elves)
Samurai themed High Elf Army
Warlord led Skaven army
Empire gunline army
Vampire Counts

This mission we deployed as normal in a Pitched Battle deployment with the single exception that all Core units had to be within 12" of the road that bisected the entire forest. The entire playing field were forests for this mission yielding a -1 to shooting right off the bat and dangerous terrain tests for many units. Also, the neat little special effect of the forest was that the mist was so thick that a unit could only see an artillery die x3 inches per turn. A misfire signalling that they can't see anything and as a result can not attack or move.

The Victory conditions stated that the player who had the most units in this opponents deployment zone would win. The game went fairly fast since half of the time units could not see each other to attack and I was able to table my opponent by the bottom of turn 3.

I managed to pretty much do everything right that game and my opponent couldn't make a leadership test or have a successful round of rolling wounds to save his life. I think this win really culminated in my dice just happened to roll better than my opponents.

Had his bolt thrower been successful at wounding my Treekin at the top of turn 2 and his Lion Chariot not forgotten to charge my Dryads after they broke and rallied , this would have been a substantially more interesting game.

Result - Wood Elves Win.

Primary Concern this game: I may be telegraphing my planned maneuvers too early in the game, perhaps better deployment.

2. Game 2 - Treasure Hunt.
The Great Hunt vs. Delicious Pustules

This scenario took place on a desert map with some pretty slick terrain. The mission was that both players receive 3 treasure tokens to play on the board after deployment. In order to claim a token the unit must charge it in order to pick it up. Once picked up the player rolls a die and on a 1 it blows up hitting the unit with a large blast template dealing Str3 wounds. The player who has the most tokens at the end of the game wins.

This game was absolutely fantastic, I played against Larry who never provides you with an easy game. He had a really strong list using 1 unit of Chaos Knights, 1 Sorcerer, 2 units of Chaos Warriors and 1 unit of Marauders. Each unit had the Mark of Nurgle.

This game I made some pretty serious mistakes all in the first turn. I chide myself for screwing up but looking back it kind of made the game even more enjoyable because I was on my heels for most of the game scrambling to figure out what to do. I personally enjoy that level of competitiveness during a game and the best part is when you play with a buddy it can be competitive AND fun. I think we were laughing the entire game which seriously took the edge off this pretty intense game.

A very brief play by play will follow:
Turn 1 resulted in my Glade Guard dying in close combat to his Chaos Knights.
Turn 2 resulted in his Marauders rallying 2 inches from edge and my Dryads breaking in close combat dropping a token.
Turn 3 ended with Treekin failing their charge and Dryads rallying all the while my Waywatchers and General can't seem to obliterate his Sorcerer's unit of Warriors.
Turn 4 resulted in Dryads being charged by Knights and dying and the Treekin causing the second unit of Chaos warriors to flee and the marauders flee off the board.
Turn 5 resulted in his Knights being charged by my Treekin after his Knights picked up their 3rd set of tokens and my Treekin LOSING combat and fleeing - also dropping their 2 tokens.
Turn 6 his Chaos Warriors route my treekin when they charge and his Knights grab his tokens making them possess 5. My waywatchers move into position and slaughter his Knights of Chaos and they drop their 5 tokens.
Turn 7 Larry charges the tokens with his last unit and claims all 5 and weathers the hail of arrows loosed at him from the Waywatchers and general.
Turn 8 Wood Elves last ditch effort to secure a draw - I unload and fail to cause a panic test in Larry's unit which would have resulted in one hell of a tie game.

Warriors of Chaos - Victor.

Mistakes made:
1. Huge and I mean HUGE mistake of mine was to not follow my standard operating procedure when I go first. Kill the heavy cavalry with the Waywatchers. This was seriously dumb. Why? Those Chaos Knights ate 2 units and caused my Treekin to flee. That's pretty much 800 points of success they pulled off.

2. Standing and Shooting against the Knights instead of fleeing - this caused my Glade Guard that would have been waaay more effective at short range to get routed and put his Knights in good position to rear charge later.

3. Not multi-charging with Treekin and Dryads. Once again I failed my standard operating procedure when engaging into melee, I did not double charge. Had my Dryads been there to support the Treekin like they were supposed to then i doubt I would have lost some of the combats. Stupid mistake but oh well.

Personally I had an absolute blast during this game and it was a seriously awesome match up. I think Larry had 2 units at maybe 1/3rd strength and I had my General and Waywatchers left at the end. Good game.

Also: Mark of Nurgle I think is perhaps the most powerful unit buff you can bestow on any army. It's incredible and has soooo much usefulness.

Game 3 - Keep to the Standard
Empire vs. The Great Hunt

This scenario was a modified version of Blood and Glory where we deployed the same way and the mission objective is to kill/capture more standards than your opponent. I had a rather large advantage in that I only had 1 standard in my entire list and my opponent had 3.

This battle was pretty brutal and up until the 4th round I thought I was going to get blown off the map. Warmachines are so brutal now that you don't have to guess their ranges.

As you can see here I had to weather the fire as he shot at me with everything. Thank god for Skirmishers and soft/hard cover. This was also a fun game and I plan on playing this army at 2k.
Once I was able to reach his flank with my Treekin and Dryads then I was able to roll up on his flank when I got my Treekin in charge range.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

So the other day I made a minor purchase...and managed to obtain 130 points worth of Warmachine's Retribution of Scryah for my next army. I bought the entire lot off a friend of mine for a good deal (Thanks Darron!) and will be assembling/painting this army up soon as my Beastmen are painted and based. I'm forcasting probably late April to early May. You can look forward to blog posts then about these "Angry Elves" as my buddies call them.
Anyway unassembled (mostly) army pic:

And so begins my journey into yet another game system to spend money on.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

This past Wednesday I got to go up against my buddy Erik's Knights of the White Wolf Empire army. The entire army is cavalry based and is modeled like the old Empire theme where all the knights wear wolf pelts and use great hammers (Great weapons). It's a pretty mobile army with a lot of punch and I had a great time against it.

The mission type was Scenario 4 - The Breaking Point mission. The Beastmen had a Fortitude of 7, Empire 6 and the goal was to get the other army down to 2 Fortitude points to break the army.

I'll enclose some images of the battle then use the Battle Chronicler software to give you a full run of the battle. The game went fairly quick due to us being embroiled in combat turn 1.

Deployment (please do not note that neither army is painted - we just assembled them!)

Deployment looked like this:

The deployment zone was 9" on each side and 15" up - creating a large box. I deployed in a stacked manner in order to support charge - which I must say I'm glad I did.

Turn 1 Beastmen- Beastmen move up and form a battle line ready to meet out the charges incoming. The Great Bray Shaman casts Miasma on the Center KoT unit reducing their Movement, Init, BS and WS by 3.

Turn 1 Empire - several charges are unleashed as the Knights charge headlong into the Beastman line. The Bestigors lose 1/4 of their number and deal out some fairly decent wounds themselves. All units end up holding with the exception of the Arch Lector being slain by the Beastlord.

Turn 2 Beastmen - Beastmen Gor units counter-charge the existing combats making it a huge melee battle in the center of the board. The GU3 Gor unit kills the War Altar and the Bestigors slay the members of the Knights unit allowing the charging Gors to overrun into the Minotaur battle.

Turn 2 Knights - Gor units continue to lay into the Armor save 2 up knights while the Minotaurs take another loss reducing their number. The Minotaurs and Gors lose combat by 2 and end up having to make a break test. Both pass - oddly enough but Minotaurs lose their Frenzy.

Turn 3 - Beastmen - Melee ensues yet again more killing and Bestigors move to better get in range to attack.

Turn 3 Empire - Minotaurs finally kill the center unit and the Gors overrun into the other Knight unit. The 5 unit combat results in - Pistoleers die, Beastmen lose combat by 1 and the Great Bray Shaman unit flees the battle.

Turn 4 Beastmen - Great Bray Shaman unit rallies and turns around. Minotaurs march to get into better position to charge next turn.

Turn 4 Empire - Pistoleers move and shoot up Great Bray Shaman's unit but not enough to cause a panic test.
Knights in combat continue to slug it out against the two units.

Turn 5 Beastmen - Great Bray Shaman unit charges Pistoleers. Pistoleers stand and shoot and get locked into combat with the Gors. Minotaurs charge the Knights in combat.

Turn 5 Empire - This is the final round for the game. Pistoleers get overrun by the Gors and defeated. The battle standard bearer unit enmeshed in combat finally dies and yields the Beastmen a victory.

Game Reflections:

The Beastmen are not a bad army, they have some decent Special choices and their Gors are not that bad. The main thing that makes the Beastmen in my opinion workable is the Primal Fury. Hatred is huge when it can persist every turn. It make not look like it but every single unit at the end of the game was down to at least 25% capacity. Even though the Knights were striking last and were toughness 3 - they had a really brutal 2+ armor save that the Str 3 onslaught of the Gor's attacks just couldn't dent. At one point Erik had a unit flanked on 3 sides and still won combat because I could not get a wound to stick due to the 2+ armor. I think some alternate deployment strategies will help me more in the future.

Had Erik done 1 more wound in the first round of combat on my Great Bray Shaman melee and caused me to break the entire army would have been probably overrun - so the dice favored me that game.

Overall I'm enjoying the Beastmen, they are a nice little break from my Wood Elves and a completely different army in every regard.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Last Sunday my friendly local gaming store had a 1500 point 40k tournament. The tournament director Darron allowed special characters and had a swiss style tournament where we played 3 games using Adepticon scenarios. I brought my standard Eldar Ulthwe 1500 point list (detailed on blog) and had decided to just tone down the competitive factor and play for fun.

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I was able to take one set of photos before my battery died on my camera. Meh...

Anyway - here is a brief summary of the games.

Round 1 - Ulthwe` Eldar vs. Space Wolves

The scenario was pitched battle deployment and whomever had a Troop selection in the center of the map at the end of the game scored the objective bonus.
Normally I would do a turn by turn battle report but I'll summarize it by saying this:
Victory by turn 5. I managed to wipe out the entire army scoring the full point value for the mission. I lost 1 unit of Storm Guardians, 3 warlocks, and had a single Wave Serpent immobilized.
First turn I blitzed forward with all three wave serpents and managed to isolate a third of his army and destroy 3/4ths of his Assault Squad of Skyclaws.
Second turn I had my Warwalkers come in from the left side of the table and destroyed his Dreadnaught, a Rhino, his Assault Squad and a Razorback.
Third turn I managed to kill his Wolf Scouts that had charged my Warwalkers.
Fourth turn my guardians broke from close combat during his turn and I was able to kill the Fenrisian Wolves and Grey Hunters with my D-Cannons and Dark Reapers.
Fifth Turn - Destroyed his remaining Rhino, Long Fangs and his other Grey Hunters unit - wiping out his army.

Round 2 - Ulthwe` Eldar vs. Sisters of Battle

This game was very fun, I played against a buddy of mine Tim. Tim enjoys rolling dice, regardless if it matters what the result is but he'll throw the bones just to do it. The scenario was Spearhead deployment with Table corners being the objectives. This game went 4 turns and was a blast.
Tim brought 2 Exorcists, a seraphim squad, and 5 units of sisters and another unit that my memory escapes me at the moment.
Tim went first after stealing the initiative and immediately wrecked one of my Wave Serpents spilling some rather annoyed Storm Guardians out into the snow. I managed to fly two remaining wave serpents into the center of the map while my Reapers shaken and stirred one of his Exorcists.
Turn 2 resulted in the destruction of my other Storm Guardian squad's Wave serpent and the unit was pinned by his deep striking seraphim squad and he dealt 2 casualties to my Dark Reapers. I managed to blow up one of his Rhinos with my Dark reapers, stunned his other Exorcist with my D-Cannons and my Seer Council opened up and destroyed 2 vehicles spilling unhappy sisters everywhere.
Turn 3 - Tim secured his table corner and attempted to mow down my Storm Guardians killing 2. His remaining Exorcist just prevented my Wave Serpent from shooting. My Storm Guardians roared and killed his seraphim squad and began their long trek to the other table corner while my other Storm Guardian squad assaulted his sisters by the other Exorcist. The Seer Council also assaulted his Command squad and were locked in combat.
Turn 4 - Tim manages to kill the warlock in the D-Cannon unit with his Exorcist. The War Walkers finally arrive and shoot his Exorcist on the left side. 24 shots, 14 hits, 1 penetrating hit....result..can't shoot....awesome.. Dark Reapers kill the rest of his sister's unit and my Wave Serpent flies to contest a table corner while the Seer Council kills his Command squad.

Game ended after this turn due to time being called. We both controlled and contested a table corner but I got the win due to having 2 more Kill Points. Great game and my first win against the accursed Sisters of Battle.

Round 3 - Ulthwe` Eldar vs. Tyranids.

This was my final game of the evening, I went up against little Dan's "bugs". The Scenario was 5 objectives and pitched battle deployment. Dan brought a bunch of hormagaunts and termagaunts, a tyranofex, a zoanthrope, some melee bug guy with a 2+ save and a bunch of broodlords with retinue. I went first and decided right off the bat that I was going to let him come to me rather than my standard method of blitzing to attack. My long range firepower units did an excellent job of whittling down his forces in the first turn.
Turn 1 - Dark Reapers kill most of the Broodlords command squad and Wave Serpents put 2 wounds on the Tyrannofex.
Turn 2 - Reapers slaughter a ton of Hormagaunts while Wave Serpents and D-Cannons wipe out one of his termagaunt units.
Turn 3 - Council gets out of their Serpent and kills his Broodlord with Destructor and pistols while my Reapers finish off one of his termagaunt squads. D-cannon puts 2 more Wounds on his Tyrannofex.
Turn 4 - his Zoanthrope managed to immobilize a Wave Serpent and he charges the immobilized Wave Serpent and destroys a weapon and makes it unable to shoot.
Turn 5 - I disembark with the rest of the army and flamer/shoot/assault and wipe out the rest of the bugs with only losing my D-Cannon support battery unit.

Eldar win.

Tournament Results - 1st Place - me.

So after this Tournament which was great (thanks Darron!) I think I may put my Eldar on the shelf for a bit and play around with some of my other armies such as my Black Templars or actually build that Raven Guard list I've been throwing around for a while. We'll see how things work out!